Meltwater offers one of the leading press release distribution platforms around. You can use it to build media lists, draft pitch emails, and send your release with a personalized message to specific journalists. It can search for journalists by beat, location, outlet, etc.

This blog post is part of “The Ultimate Guide to Public Relations” blog series. A common request we get from companies is to help with public relations–getting the business talked about among influential journalists and bloggers in their industries. Many wonder if they need to work with an agency anymore. It’s a good question. Lots of companies (and athletes and politicians) simply issue their news announcements on their websites and through social media accounts.

HARO, which stands for Help A Reporter Out, is a free program run by media database giant Cision that reverses the traditional PR relationship. While Cision’s stalwart media database gives PR pros access to journalists and publications in order to build lists to pitch stories, HARO allows journalists to pitch PR pros and marketers with queries.

Trying to get media coverage for a company, product or event is more challenging than ever. The Internet has spawned hundreds of thousands of media outlets–from bloggers with large followings to major news publications. The competition to reach these writers and journalists is fierce.